The following essay is an introduction to my recently completed Jazz Concerto. The work is scored for medium sized orchestra plus a jazz sextet comprising trumpet, alto and tenor saxophones, piano, bass, and drums. Although there are many well-known examples of orchestral works influenced by jazz, I can’t find many that actually combine jazz instruments and playing styles with conventional orchestral forces. Because of this, I feel it might be useful for me to provide some background and explain my thinking behind the composition. Partly, this is to help promote the work. It is not a commission and I’m expecting it to be doubly difficult finding orchestras willing to take on what might appear to be, at first appearance, a step into the unknown.

Background

The genesis of this concerto can be traced back to my teenage and student years during the seventies. As a keen fan of jazz & prog-rock much of my very early music was either of that type (usually written for the various bands I played with) or a sort of classical hybrid heavily influenced by those two ‘popular’ genres. An example is my Academic Sonata Op.1 (for flute and piano) - one of a set of four ‘Academic’ Sonatas composed in the late seventies while a composition student at Cardiff University. I mention this sonata specifically because a recording has recently been re-released and can now be heard on Spotify et al. (link)

At the same time as composing those ‘Academic Sonatas’ I was still writing music for authentic jazz/rock instruments and players. One such project involved a band called Second Wind featuring fellow student and jazz violin player Mark Thomas. I composed the music and together we organised a recording session using a mixture a locals and players brought down from London (including the well-known bass player Roy Babbington). One of the key local players was drummer/percussionist Dave Bibby who, at the time, was the principal percussionist with the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra - even at this time I was combining both jazz and classical musicians.

One aspect of the music I was writing for projects like Second Wind was that the compositions tended to be structured in a manner more classical than was usual for jazz. Broadly speaking, a typical jazz composition consists of a ‘head’ (i.e. a tune) the chord sequence of which is then repeated ad lib for improvised solos before ending with a reprise of the head. My jazz/rock compositions tended to be a bit more structured and through-composed. For example, passages for solos were usually chord sequences developing or contrasting the opening material rather than simple repetitions. With hindsight I can see that I was unconsciously working towards an integration between jazz/rock and classical by combining jazz/rock sounding material with classical-like structures.

This was hardly unprecedented of course: music by the jazz group Weather Report was similarly unconventional and, in the realm of prog-rock, Tubular Bells (1973) had been a huge commercial success. I was also familiar with the work of Neil Ardley - particularly his 1976 album Kaleidoscope Of Rainbows which combined both classical and jazz techniques.

Nevertheless, this was not the sort of music a ‘serious’ post-graduate composition student was expected to be involved with. Composing anything other than establishment-approved atonal (or at least highly dissonant) music was mostly seen as ‘commercial’ or a ‘sell-out’ and therefore not appropriate for academia. (How anyone could ever think jazz had any serious commercial potential is another story!)

As it happened, however, it was my interest and experience with jazz/rock (along with other non-classical musics) that was the key to developing a career as a full-time professional composer. Outside the academic bubble there was a lot of work in the realms of film and television for versatile composers willing to engage seriously with all forms and genres of contemporary music whether ‘serious’ or ‘popular’. Indeed, it is true to say that I eventually abandoned my PhD composition studies in order to become a professional composer!

At various times during this career I have returned to playing and writing for jazz/rock-type bands and some of this material, again often using extended structures, eventual provided the starting point for this concerto.

Regarding combining jazz and classical

Going back to my student days, one of the academic issues with jazz was the commonly held assumption that it couldn’t be written down, and therefore not worthy of serious consideration. It is fair to say that over the intervening years this view has, to a large extent, disappeared - jazz is now well established as a field of study in most conservatoires. Indeed one of the motivating factors in the composition of this concerto is the availability of young, versatile jazz musicians able to play authentically in both classical and jazz styles.

It is also significant that in recent decades jazz itself has diversified in any number of directions. I co-own a recording studio that has hosted many of the younger generation of UK-based jazz players. I can well imagine much of the music these artists record being described, at least by jazz purists, as crossover (of various sorts) rather than genuine jazz. It could be similarly claimed that the jazz element in my concerto is not really jazz! Obviously this does depend on how jazz is defined, but it is the case that I have considered calling the concerto a Jazz-Rock Concerto as opposed to merely a Jazz Concerto.

In many respects the diversification of jazz has made it easier to imagine combining some elements of jazz and classical more effectively. One of the potential problems I had to consider was the aspect of swing. Swing is essentially a style of performance specific to jazz, not usually notated (at least in authentic jazz charts), but understood in the context of the performing tradition. Typically, classical orchestras don’t/can’t swing - it is simply not a playing style used in any classical idiom and there is no sign of classical orchestras even considering diversifying in that direction. The closest orchestras get are in some jazz-influenced works that notate passages, presumably meant to sound swung, in the nearest literal writable form of crotchet-quaver triplets (or compound time signatures) rather than straight quavers with an indication to swing. This approach, at least, can produce a quasi-jazzy effect but it never really sounds like the real thing - which is more a way of playing the notes than writing the notes. Consequently, I decided not to use swing at all which these days doesn’t necessarily reduce the authenticity of the jazz element because of the way contemporary jazz proper has diversified and combined with other genres (such as rock and folk) which themselves don’t necessarily swing.

All is not lost for the jazz purist, however: even though the orchestral parts do not contain anything designed to emulate swing, nor are the orchestral players directed to swing, there remains the opportunity for the soloists to independently swing their parts - particularly the sixteenth notes which will work fine against non swinging orchestral eighth notes.

It is also helpful that the contemporary orchestral repertoire has also diversified, although, perhaps, to a more limited extent. I’m particularly thinking about minimalist and post-minimalist music as well as the HIP (historically informed performance) movement which all put more demands on classical musicians to play ultra-rhythmically together and in strict time.

This is helpful because it helps bring together another big difference between jazz and classical: jazz, in common with most other forms of popular music has a very different approach to rhythm. Most jazz groups have at their core a ‘rhythm section’. Typical of many groups, the rhythm section in my concerto consists of piano, bass, and drums. As well as providing the supporting harmony these players also provide the ‘groove’ - not a term used in classical circles! Essentially it describes a rhythmic texture that flows in a relatively consistent way, that is itself a great listen, but crucially provides the framework that allows the soloists to play highly syncopated lines that nevertheless make sense to the listener because of the rhythmic reference points provided by the groove.

Regarding the concerto, this means that when the rhythm section is providing a groove, all the other players (including in the orchestra and the conductor) have to lock in to that. While this is not exactly the same, minimalist music also often has a rhythm engine that functions in a similar way.

Third Stream Music

Being interested in both jazz and classical I’ve always been aware of the term and concept of ‘Third Stream’ music. This term was coined by Gunther Schuller in 1957 to describe a music genre that fuses both classical and jazz. The inclusion of jazz instruments and improvisation was considered an essential aspect of Third Stream music and additionally, in 1981, Schuller went on to define Third Stream further by listing what it is not!

He wrote:

It is not jazz with strings.
It is not jazz played on "classical" instruments.
It is not classical music played by jazz players.
It is not inserting a bit of Ravel or Schoenberg between bebop change - nor the reverse.
It is not jazz in fugal form.
It is not a fugue played by jazz players.
It is not designed to do away with jazz or classical music; it is just another option amongst many for today's creative musicians.

By this checklist my concerto could safely be described as Third Stream apart from the fact that the improvisation element is more optional than essential. This is because I’ve written in solos that could be read and reproduced (ideally in an authentic jazz playing style) as an alternative to improvising over the chord symbols. (These optional written out solos are indicated in the score by the use of cue-sized notes)

Jazz solos - improvised or written out?

In some respects, a precedent for this is the work of the Russian composer Nikolai Kapustin whose intricately notated music sounds (to a point) like improvised jazz. This is music generally performed by classical musicians rather than jazz musicians, and in the same way the solo parts of my concerto could be played by non-improvising classical players. The exception to this is the drum kit part which is not, indeed could not be, fully notated, and requires the player to elaborate the part in the usual jazz manner.

Another precedent for this ‘written-out jazz’ approach is my own 2012 chamber work The Glittering Plain. This is a three-movement ‘Sonata’ scored for alto saxophone, jazz piano trio (piano, bass, and drums) and string quartet. Although not to the same extent as the concerto, this work does have some passages for the jazz trio that could either be played as is, elaborated on, or indeed replaced with completely improvised alternatives. In the recording of this piece, however, the trio performed their parts pretty much as written with, of course, the exception of the drums which, as usual, took the part as a guide and starting point. (Available on Signum Classics)

One of the compositional challenges I needed to tackle was how to integrate the different ways classical and jazz typically develop material. This is important because I wanted to write a relatively large-scale structure that would be more than a sequence of small-scale structures. My approach was to sometimes allow the orchestra to take the lead and develop material in a classical way - at which points the jazz ensemble tries to fit in, or comment on, as best it can without itself ‘breaking cover’ and going all classical. In other places the orchestra has to fit in with the prevailing jazz sensibility when the soloists are taking the lead - and do this without becoming a mere background filler or itself going all jazzy. In adopting this approach there are, as I hoped there would be, plenty of places where it is quite hard to know which element is leading.

Listeners can judge whether or not I have succeeded in my ambition by listening to the virtual demo I have prepared. This includes playback of the optional written-out solos:

Jazz Concerto is scored for medium sized orchestra (2222, 4221, timps & 3 perc, jazz sextet [trp, alto, tenor, pro, bass, drums], strings)

Although based on material composed over the last couple of decades this concerto was written between December 2021 and February

So, what have I got to say for myself?

Jazz Concerto